• by Tanya Gazdik , February 3, 2022

With programming and viewing habits stabilizing during the ongoing pandemic, automotive TV spending in January was nearly on par with the same month a year ago. 

Automakers spent an estimate $415.6 million on national TV spending in January 2022, which is up 0.5% compared to January 2021 ($413.6 million), according to iSpot.tv.

Impressions, however,  took a bit of nosedive, down 24% year over year to 23.3 billion compared to 30.7 billion. 

The top five brands by spending for January 2022 were Hyundai ($51.8 million), Chevrolet ($46.7 million), Ram Trucks ($37.8 million), Toyota ($35.4 million) and Lexus ($32.7 million).

The most-seen automaker ads in January 2022 were: Nissan: Electric Cars for Electric Drivers (1.06 billion TV ad impressions); Lexus: Get Ahead (777 million); Lexus: Hustle (768 million); Subaru: Well Adventured (658 million); and Chevrolet: Taco Truck (655 million).

Hyundai was all-in on the NFL, with over 86% of national TV ad spend on the month attributable to those games (and about 89% of spend put toward sports-related programming on the month), per iSpot.tv.

In the No. 2 spot, Chevrolet put a similar emphasis on football -- with 81.4% of national TV ad spend against NFL games, and another 4.1% toward college football.

The top five brands by TV ad impressions for the month were Lexus (2.79 billion), Hyundai (2.49 billion), Toyota (2.45 billion), Chevrolet (2.40 billion) and Nissan (1.84 billion).

Half of the top 15 automaker brands (by spend) in January increased year-over-year national TV ad spend by at least 26%.

The biggest spending increases among top 15 brands by spend for January 2022 vs. a year ago were made by Jeep (up 252%), Ram Trucks (up 81%), Lexus (up 65%), Mercedes-Benz (up 59%) and Hyundai (up 37%).

For Jeep, the big jump in spend was fueled by a greater investment in NFL advertising. After airing seven minutes of national TV ads in January 2021, the brand had 31 minutes during NFL games this January, which coincided with a 3.7x spend increase for Jeep during NFL games, too.

While automakers were eager to buy up valuable playoff ad inventory in January, NFL games weren’t the only show genre to increase by percentage of industry national TV ad spend year-over-year, said Stuart Schwartzapfel, senior vice president, media partnerships at iSpot.tv.

“Auto brands also allocated a greater share of spend on college football, sports commentary, NBA games and sitcoms (among other genres) than they did in 2021, as they consolidated some focus around events drawing the largest audiences,” he says.

The top programs for automakers by TV ad impressions share of voice for the month were NFL (25.6% of impressions), college football (3.4%), men’s college basketball (2.6%), NBA (1.6%) and SportsCenter (1.0%).

Automakers were the No. 2 industry (by share of impressions) for the NFL in January, accounting for 8.7% of TV ad impressions during games (up from 8.0% in December). Over 44% of all auto brand TV ad impressions throughout the month were during sports-related programming, an increase from 39.1% in January 2021.

The top networks for automaker TV ad impressions in January 2022 were CBS (13.1% of impressions), NBC (11.6%), FOX (9.9%), ESPN (6.9%) and ABC (4.3%).

An auto brand emphasis on NFL games, in particular, means a good portion of impressions were delivered on networks that had NFL TV rights. Year-over-year, CBS, NBC and ESPN all increased their share of automaker impressions in January, per iSpot.tv.